Consider this troubling question: Do mortgage lenders have any obligation to take over a property that has defaulted on its mortgage?

The short answer, it appears, is no.

Lender-Abandoned, Non-REO Foreclosures | The Big Picture

The Federal Reserve System on Tuesday announced the availability of a set of dynamic maps and data that illustrate subprime and alt-A mortgage loan conditions across the United States.

The maps, which are maintained by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, will display regional variation in the condition of securitized, owner-occupied subprime, and alt-A mortgage loans. The maps and data can be used to assist in the identification of existing and potential foreclosure hotspots. This may assist community groups, which can mobilize resources to bring financial counseling and other resources to at-risk homeowners. Policymakers can also use the maps and data to develop plans to lessen the direct and spillover impacts that delinquencies and foreclosures may have on local economies. Local governments may use the data and maps to prioritize the expenditure of their resources for these efforts.
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The maps show the following information for subprime and alt-A loans for each state and most of the counties and zip codes in the United States:

• Loans per 1,000 housing units
• Loans in foreclosure per 1,000 housing units
• Loans real estate owned (REO) per 1,000 housing units
• Share of loans that are adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs)
• Share of loans for which payments are current
• Share of loans that are 90-plus days delinquent
• Share of loans in foreclosure
• Median combined loan-to-value ratio (LTV) at origination
• Share of loans with low credit score (FICO) and high LTV at origination
• Share of loans with low- or no documentation
• Share of ARMs with initial reset in the next 12 months
• Share of loans with a late payment in the past 12 months

Dynamic Maps of Nonprime Mortgage Conditions in the United States

In Nassau and Suffolk Counties in New York, in Montgomery and Baltimore Counties in Maryland, in Bergen and Essex and Middlesex Counties in New Jersey, in almost every mature suburb in the northeast and Midwest and mid south, families face these same conditions. A Roman Catholic pastor I met in Nassau County described it as suburbia’s midlife crisis. It may be part of America’s midlife crisis as well.

No longer young, no longer trendy, no longer the place to be, no longer without apparent limitations or constraints, these places, like people, have developed ways of avoiding reality.

Urban decline moves to the suburbs

Atlanta is just as hosed ...

The condominium market is about to get worse as many cities brace for a flood of new supply this year -- the result of construction started at the height of the housing boom.

More than 4,000 new units will be completed in both Atlanta and Phoenix by the end of the year. Developers in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., are readying nearly 10,000 total new units in a market already struggling with canyons of unsold condos. San Diego, another hard-hit region, will add 2,500 units, according to estimates provided by Reis Inc., a New York-based real-estate-research firm.

The deluge means bad news for developers and potentially lower prices, including in cities such as Atlanta and Dallas that have avoided the worst of the housing bust. If defaults and foreclosures rise, lenders will feel the pain too.

Woes in Condo Market Build As New Supply Floods Cities

"We Make Your Dreams Come True"

subprime works

James Surowiecki:

Americans may disagree about nearly everything, but few contest the idea that owning your home is a good thing. The housing boom undoubtedly helped the economy’s growth rate and made lots of first-time home buyers happy. Unfortunately, it may also end up prolonging and deepening the current downturn.

Home Economics

A few minutes after entering, you can see why this park attracts so many. Winding trails wrap around a pond. Trees sprout at the top of huge rocks and pedestrian tunnels frame landscapes like works of art. Every curve and each successive space draws you further.

In the 1920´s and 30´s, before the age of air-conditioning, my father once told me that New Yorkers used to leave their apartments to sleep in the park on summer nights. Was America any safer then, or did people take more care of one another during those days?

From the archive:

The looming demise of the "time lady," as she's come to be known, marks the end of a more genteel era, when we all had time to share.

See also, from Adam Gopnik:

New York’s abundance lingers on as rumor and memory, but the city’s ground is intrinsically fertile, and I decided next to get a sense of the natural wealth of New York by eating things that are growing here by accident. “Why don’t you try foraging Central Park with ‘Wildman’ Steve Brill?” Gabrielle suggested. Steve, she explained, could point to everything sauvage that there was to eat in the city. I was taken with the idea of using the Park as a kitchen garden, like those country friends who scamper into the yard for fresh-cut basil.

A Sunday or two later, I found myself, with my children, following Steve on one of his encyclopedic tours of New York’s edible nature.

Sleepless In Central Park

To gauge market “expectations,” real estate industry observers have increasingly referenced the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s nascent real estate futures market. This paper tests whether prices on that exchange have proved to be unbiased predictors of real estate prices. Empirical evidence suggests that prices for more distant contracts–futures contracts that expire in six months or more–have tended to predict larger home price declines than ultimately occurred. Prices for contracts that were closer to expiration, by contrast, were less susceptible to such bias.

Real Estate Futures Prices as Predictors of Price Trends

Data through October 2007, released today by Standard & Poor’s for its S&P/Case-Shiller(R) Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, show broadbased declines in the prices of existing single family homes across the United States, marking the 10th consecutive month of negative annual returns and the 23rd consecutive month of decelerating returns.

The 10-City Composite’s annual decline of 6.7% is a record low. The previous largest decline on record was 6.3% recorded in April 1991. In October, the 20-City Composite recorded an annual decline of 6.1%.

“No matter how you look at these data, it is obvious that the current state of the single-family housing market remains grim,” says Robert J. Shiller, Chief Economist at MacroMarkets LLC. “Not only did the 10-City Composite post a record low in its annual growth rate, but 11 of the 20 metro areas did the same. If you look at the monthly figures, every MSA went down in both October and September. Eleven of the 20 MSAs, in addition to the two composites, recorded their single largest monthly decline on record in October. For both the 10-City and 20-City composites this was a decline of 1.4% over September.”

Miami surpassed Tampa in October, reporting a double-digit annual decline of 12.4%. Tampa followed with -11.8%, Detroit with -11.2% and San Diego with - 11.1%. Six of the metro areas are now posting double digit declines in their annual growth rates. Atlanta and Dallas finally entered negative territory, with declines of 0.7% and 0.1%, respectively, leaving only Charlotte, Portland and Seattle as the MSAs still experiencing positive annual growth rates.

Broad-based, Record Declines in Home Prices in October

For fans of the Real Estate Roller Coaster:

Inflation adjusted analysis of mainland U.S. same home sales shows a cooling across Michigan and Massachusetts. For your enjoyment I have generated an animated heat map indicating the states that are burning above (red) and below (blue) the historical price trend for that area. The chart runs from 1975 through September 2007.

For every region I have done a regression analysis to determine the long-term historical growth rate. When local prices are way above sustainable long-term averages for that metropolitan area they contribute to a state being colored bright red. When home prices have fallen to be far below what they should be, they contribute to their state being colored deep blue.

US Home Price Heat Map, 1977-2007